Chapter 2

James hurried in behind us.

“This is Uncle Lucas, and that’s your cousin. Noah, say hello.”

“Hello,” Noah said obediently, then shifted his gaze to Ethan.

Ethan slid down from my arms and looked around the hospital room with open curiosity.

His eyes drifted to the bedside table, and suddenly they lit up.

“That pendant looks so familiar!”

I followed his line of sight.

The necklace clasp had a special magnetic design.

I had commissioned a craftsman to make it because Ethan kept losing his things.

“That’s my—”

Ethan raised his hand to point.

James had already stepped quickly to the bedside and removed the pendant in one swift motion.

“It’s just a child’s trinket, a cheap imitation.”

He smiled, but his fingers tightened firmly around the pendant. “Noah hasn’t been well, so I bought him one.”

“Is that so?” I asked softly.

I remembered clearly the day that the pendant had disappeared.

Ethan had come home from kindergarten in tears, saying he had lost it.

We had searched the entire house.

In the end, Serena had gathered him into her arms and said, “I’ll buy you a better one.”

At the time, I had been preoccupied with a project and paid little attention.

Now that I thought about it, Serena had come home early that day.

Ethan looked up at me.

“Dad, that one really looks like mine…”

“Yours is at home, Ethan.”

I stroked his hair and turned to James.

“What is Noah in here for?”

“Polycystic kidney disease.” James lowered his voice.

“The doctor said… a transplant would be best.”

“I see.” I nodded.

“Then we won’t disturb you. Get some rest.”

As I stepped out of the room, I heard Noah ask softly, “Dad, when is Mom coming…?”

The door closed behind me, cutting off the rest of his words.

I took Ethan’s hand and walked down the long corridor.

My stride remained even, and my hands did not tremble.

But inside my chest, something frozen, the sensation spreading to the rest of my body.

Back at the car, I fastened Ethan’s seatbelt and turned on his favorite cartoon.

“Dad needs to make a phone call. Stay here and watch for a while, okay?”

“Okay.”

Ethan nodded obediently.

I walked to a quiet corner of the hospital garden and called my assistant, Liam Cole.

“Mr. Drake?”

“Liam,” I said, my voice unnervingly calm, “look into Serena. The past five years—no, seven. I want all her bank transactions, travel records, and call logs.

“Pay special attention to anything connected to Rivershire City. And investigate a man named James Carter.

“I want the full report within three days.”

…

I took Ethan home.

When I pushed open the front door, the motion-sensor light in the entryway glowed softly.

Our family portrait hung on the wall, the one taken on Ethan’s third birthday.

I held him in my arms, and Serena leaned gently against my shoulder.

Everything looked perfect.

So perfect it made my head ache.

“Dad, I’m hungry.”

Ethan tugged at the hem of my shirt.

“Okay. Let me make something for you.”

I bent down to change my shoes, my movements smooth, as if rehearsed countless times.

Through the blurred glass, I saw the basketball hoop in the yard.

I had installed it myself when Ethan was two.

Serena had said, “I want to build a little world for our son where he can play basketball whenever he wants.”

She had worked late into the night that day, rubbing her hands raw with blisters.

As I applied ointment to her palms, I scolded her for being foolish.

She had only smiled and said, “If my husband and child want something, I’ll make sure they have it.”

We had been so good then.

We met in college.

She had been a poor student with nothing to her name, and I had been the son of the wealthiest family in Rivershire.